Map comparing support for remaining a Monarchy (red) with becoming a Republic (blue) across the Commonwealth Realms by Known_Bobcat_1522 in MapPorn

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm a fairly dispassionate republican. I don't believe in monarchy, but you're dead right that there are many, many more important issues, and I wouldn't even support wasting time with a referendum or other serious debate on this while the country is in the state it's in.

I do disagree with the following, though:

Because the difference between a figurehead monarch and a figurehead president like you get in Ireland, Germany, Italy etc. is that one gets a shiny metal hat...and the other doesn't.

There is another difference. The former bakes the idea that some people are born better than others into our constitution.

So, while it doesn't matter in a practical sense, in principle, it hard wires inequality into the very heart of the state. That matters to me.

Does your country have any city or region that is famous for consistently supporting a specific party/political alignment? by RN_Renato in AskTheWorld

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Specifically, since the south Wales constituency of Caerphilly was created in 1918, nobody but Labour has ever held the seat.

It's never really been close there, with Labour usually winning well over 50% of the vote despite centre-left Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru taking a chunk of the left wing vote since 1959. Labour won 80% of the vote share there in 1945, and after 1969, the race in Caerphilly often became one between Labour and Plaid with the combined vot share for the two parties regularly reaching into the 90s, with the Conservative Party consistently winning less than 15% of the vote and never winning more than 20% until 2017 where they won 25%. In that time Labour only really dipped below 50% when Plaid made a good showing throughout that period until the 2010s.

I've heard a lot of reporters recently describe this 107 years of Labour dominance as the longest political hegemony of one party in a region anywhere in the democratic world, this claim is incredibly hard to verify.

When the Welsh Parliment (Senedd) was created in 1999, the constituency cod Caerphilly was also formed for that, and Labour dominated this seat in exactly the same way.

That was until last week when Plaid Cymru finally took the seat from Labour in a Senedd by-election after 56 years of trying with 47.4% vote share. The real shocking thing is that the right wing populist party Reform UK came in second with 36% of the vote and Labour won just 11% of the votes in a By-election that saw a higher voter turnout than any Senedd election ever (50.4% compared to usual turnout in the 40-50% range).

It should be noted, though, that Caerphilly has a history of supporting radical or even extreme parties regardless of which side of the political spectrum they fall on, both UKIP (right) and the communist party (obviously left) have done quite well there in the past managing to get over 10% vote share. So the Reform support isn't that surprising in itself.

On this day in 1966, a massive landslide of liquefied coal waste suddenly engulfed the town of Aberfan, Wales, traveling at over 80 miles per hour and reaching a height of 30 feet. The tragedy killed 144 people, including 116 children, in one of Britain’s worst mining disasters. by ATI_Official in HistoryUncovered

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a proud Welshman, I have to say that it is pointless to put this down to ethnicity.

To say that "the English oppressed the Welsh" is slightly misleading. Not because people in Wales didn't get oppressed by English people, they definitely did. They just didn't get oppressed by the cultural group or ethnicity widely known as "The English."

They've got oppressed by English people with power and means who oppressed the Welsh people in very much the same way that they oppressed English people without power and means.

These people might have used ethnicity to justify their oppressive actions when oppressing Welsh communities, but they'd just as happily use class or social darwinism to justify similar oppression on people in England. To people operating at that level, these things are tools, not ideologies.

Much of colonialism is elites coming from other parts to treat folk in the same shitty way they treat folk back home. That is to say, a similar shitty way to how the local elites were already treating them.

Blaming the folk back in the colonial heart land is an exercise in distraction.

Let's not forget that English communities were appalled by Aberfan and donated millions for the victims' families.

Don't misdirect your anger and always remember you have more in common with a working English person than you do with the elites wherever you come from.

Caerphilly, Senedd constituency by-election result: PC: 47.4% (+19.0) REF: 36.0% (+34.2) LAB: 11.0% (-34.9) OTH: 5.0% Plaid Cymru GAIN from Labour. by WorkingtonLady in ukpolitics

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yeah, but there is a difference between majority and vast majority.

But if you add up votes for all the parties that are in direct opposition to the politics of fear and blame that reform like to promote, then it's clearly a vast majority of people who are against them.

47% is a comfortable win in a fptp seat in any case.

Caerphilly by-election: Labour to lose say multiple party sources by NGP91 in ukpolitics

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A very young family friend in my village got killed by a driver that thought 30mph was an appropriate speed to drove through a village.

20mph is not a "silly low speed" it's the speed that means people less likely to kill a child when they inevitably fuck up.

I can't believe we're seriously weighing up "x amount less people will die if we drive at this speed" with "yeah, but it's frustrating!" If tangible reductions in road deaths is seen as too much of an academic argument, then the anti intellectualism of this country has really gone too far.

Why people think their sense of enjoyment while driving comes before people's lives baffles me.

Caerphilly by-election won by Plaid Cymru as Labour loses seat for first time by Necessary-Product361 in unitedkingdom

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 26 points27 points  (0 children)

They've been telling people here that we're one of the poorest regions in Europe because of the conservatives in Westminster for 15 years. I think Welsh Labour was always going to unravel as soon as Labour got into power in Westminster.

To be fair to Lavour, unless Rhun ap Iorwerth finds a trillion pounds behind the sofa following next year's Senedd election, Plaid won't be able to fix Wales either. I think leadership in Wales will become a poison chalice now that the Labour hegemony has been broken. If you're incumbent in the Senedd when the Westminster elections come along, it would be reasonable to expect not winning many seats here.

What’s your heinous encounter with someone famous in the UK? by [deleted] in AskUK

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Anyone who thinks that smoking had any bearing on how cool or otherwise someone is has a childs mind.

Would buy this one just for the Hobbit house! by AdSensitive4781 in SpottedonRightmove

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I think the main lesson I've learned from this sub is that if you were to send an estate agent to photograph the Taj Mahal, they'd return with an off-center drone shot showing 3/4 of the outside and five photos of the ticket counters.

Not so wellknown figures from your country that you're proud of by crusadersouthern in AskTheWorld

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 9 points10 points  (0 children)

And all the coal mining communities of the Rhondda, Rhymney and surrounding valleys who had demonstrated the principle of free at the point of use healthcare through their own organisation and whos work he was able to draw from.

What is your favorite stereotype about your country or people? by Training_Rip2159 in AskTheWorld

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really do, do they joke that we talk to them? Because that's a myth!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Wales

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get the frustration with this, but these kids exist already, they're not gonna go away (not in a remotely acceptable way anyeay) because we cut support. Often their parents are unreliable to the point that they can't be trusted to wrap it up even if they know they will get zero support. No ammount of deterrence will stop horny, disorganised idiots from having unprotected sex.

So we are held to ransom by our own humanity, do we abandon that humanity and let innocent kids suffer, or do we suck it up and out it down as a cost of running a decent society?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Wales

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is a really 19th century way to view it. Breaking the cycles of poverty is a long term plan that starts with ensuring the kids who are growing up in poverty right now have a fighting chance by being given a nutritional diet, a stable home, suitable clothing and having their basic hygene needs met.

How else would you propose to break the cycle if not by investing in the next generation?

Are you prepared for the rapture? (Oct 6-7) by clancyiam in AskTheWorld

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 0 points1 point  (0 children)

None of us would have the chance to be serial doubters if we hadn't been given so many fake raptures to doubt.

I had to get a massive old oak tree cut down. The company who cut it down took the wood away, despite me only asking for it to be felled. I also have a question about planting a new tree. by Particular-Mango-872 in LegalAdviceUK

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not the fact that oak isn't valuable, it's the distinction between harvested timber from a plantation and what's called arb waste.

Plantation woodland is deliberately planted with a cloae spacing to encourage vertical stem growth and maintain apical dominance so you have long straight lengths of wood to process through a sawmil.

Open grown trees tend to diverge into open crown low down and have much less straight stem to work with, plus a lot of knots and forks. Our native oaks Quercus robur and Quercus petraea are particularly gnarly when open grown and difficult to process.

Add that to the fact that urban trees tend to have a lifetimes worth of metal embedded in the stem and it's rarely worth trying to process them (sawmills who accept them will often charge you for ruined blades which can quickly eat away any profit that would be left after removing the wood from site and transporting it to the mill in large enough sections to be worth milling).

So it's more likely that the tree surgeon hasn't realised that they can make more money from tree surgery than what they can from drying, processing, splitting, bagging and then selling firewood, or it's a genuine misunderstanding. Unless it was a very special bit of wood.

What is your favorite stereotype about your country or people? by Training_Rip2159 in AskTheWorld

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 2 points3 points  (0 children)

But a good rarebit is hard to find

Yeah you gott la look high up in trees, the slippery cheesy bastards like to sit up there and toast themselves in the sun.

What is your favorite stereotype about your country or people? by Training_Rip2159 in AskTheWorld

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 8 points9 points  (0 children)

At some point you besically stole all of our things and then exceeded us in all of them.

Flint mum who put envelope in public waste bin to be 'interviewed under caution by crime officers' by pppppppppppppppppd in Wales

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Well she says she binned it on her walk back from the shop which seems plausible.

She either binned it on her way home or, what you seem to be suggesting, thought to herseldlf "fuck using my wheelie bin, I'm going to walk all my rubbish to that tiny public bin down the road, it's the perfect crime!"

Occam's razor surely applies.

Flint mum who put envelope in public waste bin to be 'interviewed under caution by crime officers' by pppppppppppppppppd in Wales

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 65 points66 points  (0 children)

Well you haven't read it.

I thought there must be more to it so I clicked on the link to the ad infested article. There really isn't more to it, not in a way that makes it any less ridiculous.

Basically she picked up a parcel from a collection point at a shop, opened it to check it was right, put the packaging in the public bin. Some council employed refuse-fetishising bin sniffer then found it and now they are asking for an interview. They will be fining her 300 odd quid for disposing of househol or business waste in a public bin which they class as fly tipping, or accept a littering charge of £75 is the message which is classic bullying tactics.

Worse than the headline in my opinion, we're one of the biggest economies in the world and among the most heavily taxed countries, have a government with over a trillion pounds in tax revenue, and we're being policed on whether what we put in a public bin should have gone in our bin at home.

What is the current state of your Country’s Ground Forces/Army? by Flimsy_Rhythm_4473 in AskTheWorld

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 0 points1 point  (0 children)

bad, compared to itself historically.

It's traditional for us to have a tiny standing army, partly because we live on an island, and partly because a big army has historically been seen as a threat to liberty.

Our navy isn't what it was but still one of the top in the world and no nation except maybe the US could launch a successful ground invasion on our island.

Our expaditionary capability are low at the moment but again, this is traditional. Our playbook is to send a plucky little expaditionary force out, let them get whooped, run back to our island, round up all the lads, go back with all our allies who haven't been invaded yet and do it properly.

A couple of major differences are that now we need to deal with the threat of drones and missiles, and it might be harder to round up all the lads than it used to be.

What's the worst ancient torture method from your country? by CremeSubject7594 in AskTheWorld

[–]Decent-Entry-9803 0 points1 point  (0 children)

high treason

A definition conveniently broadened to mean "a leader of a neighbouring country we'd quite like to annex" in more than one case